Court extends time for Zimbabwe voting election

Posted: Monday, March 11, 2002

The Associated Press

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A Zimbabwean judge on Sunday ordered the government to extend voting by one day in the most bitterly contested presidential election in the country's history, as lines hundreds-deep snaked from polling booths long after the voting deadline passed.

Reaction to the judge's ruling - which the government immediately said it would appeal - was erratic. Some polling stations in the capital of Harare continued to process voters already in line, while police closed others.

Confusion also surrounded whether voting would continue today, as directed by the court order.

President Robert Mugabe is facing his strongest challenger since Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 in Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader who has promised to transform the nation. Most election observers believe high turnout benefits Tsvangirai, and that that is reason the government is seeking to cut off the voting. Opposition officials said they had won a voting extension from Judge Ben Hlatshwayo for the entire country. Justice Minister Patrick Chinimasa told opposition lawyers that he would launch an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court Sunday night to reverse the lower court's ruling, but it was not expected to rule until today.

About an hour after the ruling, 60 riot police charged into the Glen Norah polling station in Harare, chasing away between 2,500 and 3,000 people waiting to vote, said an opposition observer, who said he was too frightened to give his name. The police locked the polling station and then threatened all who approached the station.

Just as the opposition was announcing the judge's decision to extend the voting, election official Tobaiwa Mudede said there would not be an extension and that by noon Sunday 2.5 million of Zimbabwe's 5.6 million registered voters had already cast ballots.

"It is not our wish, or intention, to have an extension," Mudede said.

Voters throughout the capital vowed not to leave until they had a chance to vote.

After the 7 p.m. closing time in one Harare township, Budiriro, several thousand voters waited in a slow-moving line as a half-dozen riot police with bayonets on their rifles patrolled the crowd.

Precinct presiding officer Priscilla Mufunba said the station would stay open until everyone in line had voted, but lamented that "as long as we are open, they will never stop coming."

At a voting station in Kuwadzana, outside of Harare, polling officials began sealing ballot boxes, saying they were tired and would return Monday morning. But before the crowd of 1,000 people was told, more than 60 riot police arrived and ordered voters waiting in line to leave.

The crowd groaned and booed, but most people quietly dispersed.

"They told us to come back tomorrow, but this is part of rigging," said M. Sithole, as he turned to go home. "We don't understand what's happening here. Six years is a long time for a person to rule without the people telling him to."

The people of Harare's poor Glen View neighborhood remained determined to vote, though many had waited in huge lines for more than a day and half and still were far from the ballot box. Worried that election officials might try to close the station, many swore they would not let the ballot boxes leave without their votes.

"We will block the doors or we will die here," said P. Philgo, an unemployed 27-year-old. There were still 1,500 people waiting to vote there two hours after the polls officially closed, but those in line said many had given up and gone home.

Tsvangirai cast his vote Sunday - his 50th birthday - and called for a two-day extension of the vote to deal with the high turnout, which most observers believe benefits his bid.

Learnmore Jongwe, spokesman for Tsvangirai's party welcomed the judge's decision.

"We are concerned the government is not obeying the court order. Any government in the world would be inclined to assist its citizens to vote," Jongwe said.

Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, the former military ruler of Nigeria who leads the Commonwealth observer mission, joined other monitors in calling for an extension of the voting.

Though lines were reported at polling stations throughout the country, none were as long as those in Harare, an opposition stronghold. It has more than 14 percent of the nation's registered voters, but was assigned less than 3 percent of the polling booths for the elections, far fewer than in previous polls.

At a school-turned-polling station in Glen View, hundreds spent the night in line with no blankets and no food so they would not lose their place in line.

"I'd rather suffer for two days than suffer for six years," said 47-year-old B. Ncube.

In the weeks before the vote, pro-Mugabe militants attacked opposition supporters, while police broke up several opposition rallies and arrested dozens of Tsvangirai supporters.

On Saturday, the first day of the two-day official vote, ruling party militants took over two polling stations, stole voting materials from a third, and at another station, ballots arrived already marked in favor of Mugabe, observers and opposition supporters said.

In a statement Sunday night, opposition officials said attacks on movement polling monitors and supporters continued throughout the country.

Government officials have repeatedly rejected accusations of intimidation and vote rigging through stringent election laws.

Tsvangirai is promising to revive the economy and end corruption. But Mugabe has painted him as a servant to white interests and Western powers who want to see the country fail.

Mugabe has promised public works initiatives if he is re-elected and has pledged to continue his controversial program of seizing white-owned farms and giving them to landless blacks. Whites make up less than 1 percent of the country's population but own about a third of the nation's commercial farmland.